


Renaissance

by MidwesternDuchess



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: I will pay someone to explain Overwatch's timeline to me honestly, Post-Canon, big ole character study, i guess?, just sort of looks at the difference between Angela and Mercy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 04:03:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8650663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidwesternDuchess/pseuds/MidwesternDuchess
Summary: "Some words were like that. Whole lives attached to them. Ghosts and lives and ecstasy and sorrow.” -Paullina Simons  
  (She sits before the council, listening as strangers in suits condemn those she considered family. Overwatch is dead, and Mercy is an angel with clipped wings.)





	

The chair she is given is stiff and hard, and Angela shifts uncomfortably as she settles into it.

Before her sits a council, of sorts. She watches—clear blue gaze steady and even—as they file in before her, each as impeccably dressed as the last. She herself has opted for her simple white coat, medical badge shining dully where it's clipped to her collar.

She'd briefly considered donning the Valkyrie suit, but had decided against it. The suit's purpose is to protect others, and she's all that's left. She tugs the lab coat a bit tighter around her slight shoulders, feeling the acute loss of her wings—the familiar weight of her armor.

Angela catches the eye of one man in particular as he takes his place at the center of the panel spread before her. His nameplate marks him as a representative from France, and he is flanked by a man from Egypt and a woman from the UK. Angela's gaze sweeps the council before her, reading over the counties printed on nameplates, jaw locked and hands fisted tightly in her lap.

She's stood trial hundreds of times—she's offered her medical insight, presented her unique perspective on Overwatch, defended her actions and the actions of her comrades. And every time—during every single case she ever participated in—Overwatch was there for her.

Ana suggesting genuine advice in her low, steady voice while Morrison fussed over her hair, lamenting the fact that her blonde curls never seemed to lie flat. Reyes standing off to the side, watching the hallway they stood in, occasionally letting loose some sarcastic quip that had Morrison turning around to glare while Ana scolded them, voice harsh in her native language.

She crosses her legs, straightening in her seat.

She's alone now. Just a woman in a white coat with a host of bad memories.

"Dr. Angela Ziegler," the man begins, adjusting his glasses and making them flash in the light. His accent is heavy and cold. "You know why you are here, yes?"

She nods once. "Yes, sir." The wide room seems to swallow her soft words, and she grits her teeth, emboldened by the phantom weight of her Valkyrie suit.

 _"Yes,"_ she repeats, and this time steel lines her words.

The man assess her over the rim of his glasses, before muttering a quick word to the woman beside him. She nods in agreement to whatever he says, and he turns back to Angela.

"Then we will begin with Jesse McCree," the man announces. Angela dips her head in understanding, inwardly stewing. Of course they'd start with McCree. They could never resist dragging the gunslinger's name through the mud.

"When was the last time you had contact with the Overwatch operative known as McCree?"

A brief memory flashes before her mind's eye—Jesse hugging her tightly as she prepared to leave for Switzerland, promising he'd see her again. His chest plate had dug painfully into Angela's shoulder, but she'd held him fiercely anyway.

That was five months ago.

Angela tells them as much. Murmurs break out among the table of representatives.

"Five months?" Angela turns to regard the speaker—a man from Brazil who sits at the far end of the table. He gives an uncertain laugh, appealing to other members of the panel. "Ms. Ziegler, surely you do not expect us to believe that."

The reproachful look she gives him burns bright with anger.

"I swore to tell the truth, sir," she reminds him coldly. "And I am a _doctor."_

"Do you know what he was planning, Doctor?" the Frenchman looks down at her with an arched eyebrow. "It is just highly unlikely that an agent as volatile as McCree has stayed quiet for as long as he has—"

"I have not kept tabs on him," Angela cuts him off, and her words bite with a warning. "If I had, I would have told you so. Because— _again_ —I am here to tell the truth."

A pause. Angela watches as many members of the council scribble down notes.

"And Jesse was not volatile," she adds quietly, lowering her eyes. "He was brave and passionate. He was…" she trails off, eyes losing focus as she recalls the countless times she'd seen the gunslinger abandoned orders in order to rescue some child who'd wandered too close to the fight, or to chase down an enemy operative who was gunning for a bystander. The boy—the _man_ —with the fastest draw in the country who would lower his gun and take a bullet for anyone, any day. She swallows hard.

"He was gentle and kind when the world was not."

"He was an ex-member of the Deadlock Gang." Angela looks up to cross gazes with a dark-haired woman whose plate marks her as a representative from the States. The woman arches a brow in a gesture of superiority that annoys Angela more than it has any right to. "To the best of my knowledge, Doctor, that is not a group known for their charity."

Angela stares her down coldly. "If you are going to judge someone based exclusively on one part of his or her life, that is your business," she retorts, voice icy and barbed. She shifts in her seat, a move that—had she been wearing her suit—would have kicked her wings out. The chair just creaks under her. "I do not condone such shortsighted unfairness, but I will not waste my breath defending the honor of my friends to thankless individuals who are unworthy of their service."

Her lab coat doesn't protect her like her Valkyrie suit had—her back is exposed without her wings, leaving her open for critique and criticism and unwarranted comments.

Overwatch's angel had commanded a certain level of respect. Dr. Ziegler has to fight tooth and nail to have her voice heard.

Murmurs spread across the panel, and Angela watches as the woman sits back, scowling. The blonde knows she'll pay for that comment later, but she feels no qualms. Had Jesse been in this chair instead of her, he would have said the same thing.

Well, roughly the same thing. He and Angela could never quite agree on their conflicting speech patterns and accents, and she had—one more than one occasion—sarcastically demanded if English had been his second language as well.

"Next is Ana Amari," the Frenchman speaks up, and Angela switches her gaze back to him. "What do you know of her location, Dr. Ziegler?"

Angela's eyes go wide at the question as she is ripped from the council room and thrown back into that night. That horrible, haunted night when she'd railed against Morrison and Reyes—when she'd screamed and yelled and begged in every language she knew, words tangled in English and German and Arabic and Spanish as she pleaded with them to let her go, to let her help, she could make it in time if they just let her go— _I am a **doctor** , Commander and if you do not let me help people than what is the **point** of me?_

"Dr. Ziegler."

Angela snaps to attention. The council is staring at her expectantly. She chokes down a swallow.

"Ana Amari is dead." She forces the words out of her throat the way she forces all the others. How many casualty notifications has she made in her lifetime? It doesn't matter. It never gets easy. You don't let it get easy. You don't normalize death. You force yourself to feel it just as keenly as the NOK—

"Where is her body, then?" The Egyptian man this time, and his voice is less cruel than it is honestly curious. "You understand we need proof of such claims, yes?"

Angela shifts in her seat, refusing to allow herself to sag as she blows out a breath that upsets her bangs. She misses the weight of her halo-shaped headpiece. It always served as a reminder. Something to live up to.

"I do not know where her body is," she answers evenly, looking not at the man's face, but at the wall behind him. She can get through this. _She can get through this._ She sees Ana's confident smirk, the way her tattoo would crinkle under her eye when she laughed, her playful punches which Morrison always complained were not playful in the _slightest_ , the way she could outshoot Jesse and would cackle at the gunslinger's frustration—

She forces out another breath, closing her eyes, steadying herself. She can do this.

She _has_ to do this.

She gives her lab coat a firm tug.

"She died on a mission," Angela answers dully.

"By whose hand?" The American woman again.

Angela grits her teeth. They all read the report. They all know the answer.

This is _spite._

"The Talon operative known as Widowmaker," Angela answers stiffly.

Some members of the panel nod at her words, others begin to scribble notes. The American woman will not let her go, eyes flashing as she sits forward, staring down at Angela from her high table.

"Do you mean Amélie Lacriox?" she asks, tongue like a knife, teeth like shards of glass.

Silence deadens the chamber.

Slowly, Angela looks up to meet the other woman's gaze, eyes cold and fierce.

She may not wear any of Mercy's armor, but she carries all of Mercy's fury.

"I mean what I mean," she returns, voice cloaked in a darkness that makes some of the other council members shift in their seats, clearly uncomfortable. "If you are trying to upset me, Councilwoman—if you wish to see me break down before you—you are going to have to try harder than that." Her eyes catch in the light as she lifts her chin, ID badge flashing against her chest. "Believe it or not, _you_ are not the worst thing I have ever come across in my life."

The hearing continues. They discuss Reinhardt and Torbjörn. Her voice rings out as she fiercely defends Genji Shimada. She loudly speaks over them as they attempt to discredit Mei-Ling Zhao. Each member of Overwatch—of her family—is presented before her, and Angela tries desperately to protect them. Half of them dead, the rest missing—she failed as their doctor but she will _not_ fail as their friend.

When they propose to her the idea of Lena Oxton—Overwatch's beloved Tracer—being a double-agent in league with Widowmaker and Talon, she very nearly rises from her seat, hand drifting down to settle over a Caduceus Blaster that's not there.

She swallows as her fingers close around empty air, gritting her teeth.

Her lab coat hangs limply across her shoulders.

"Lena was the kindest, most sincere agent I knew," Angela tells them, eyes blazing, teeth slightly bared. She drops her hand back in her lap. "Any theory that suggests otherwise is ludicrous."

There is some chatter among the panel as they mull over her words. Angela feels slightly light-headed. They've been at it for hours, and yet…she knows who is left.

"So," the Frenchman in charge looks over his sheet, as if he has somehow forgotten. "That leaves John Morrison and Gabriel Reyes."

"Commander." Her correction is soft, but holds incredible feeling. She lifts her gaze. _"Commander_ Gabriel Reyes."

Her words spark murmured confusion from the suits. The man with glasses leafs through some of his documents.

"Dr. Ziegler…my records show that it was John Morrison who was the—"

"No," Angela says quietly. She shakes her head, eyes narrowed in defiance. "I took orders from Gabriel Reyes. No one else."

Because Jack didn't give orders. Because Jack didn't want to put Gabe on the outs any more than the rest of them. Because Jack never wanted to hurt Gabe—he never wanted to hurt anyone.

Because Jack knew people's strengths and weakness—Jack looked at a person and saw the good in them, and he treated it like it was all he saw. Because Jack was bright and shining and the golden boy of Overwatch, but Reyes was the one who would look at her—young, horrified, green as the hills of Salzburg, hands covered in the blood of her patients, hardly worthy of the name _Mercy_ —and tell her to let them go.

She was Overwatch's angel, and she took orders from Overwatch's reaper.

She swallows hard. And now it seems she's here to defend Overwatch's ghosts.

"And when was the last time you _saw_ Commander Reyes?" the woman from the United Kingdom asks, tilting her head curiously.

Angela considers the question.

"In…in the infirmary," she answers softly, and suddenly, she is not in the auditorium, standing trial before a panel trying to condemn her friends. She is back in her ruined infirmary, trying desperately to pump life back into her dead and disgraced Commander as Jack pounds on the door, demanding to be let in—

"And?" the Frenchman this time, lifting his eyebrows. "What happened?"

"They…" Angela trails off, biting her lip. Jack had broken in—kicked the door down like it was nothing, standing over her, half-dead himself, begging her no to do this, to leave the dead alone, to just _let Reyes go, Angela, he's too far gone, just let him **go—**_

"That was the last time I saw them," she murmurs. "Both of them."

"So they're dead," the American woman states bluntly. "Reyes and Morrison—they're dead."

Angela thinks of the reports of a man who wears the mask of an owl—a man who can turn to smoke and melt into shadow. A man with an inexhaustible supply of weaponry and a list of revenge to match it.

She thinks of the whispers of another man. A man with a scar where his face should be, hair snow white and visor blood red, stalking the streets, looking for trouble, a 76 printed on across his back.

She lifts her head—an action that used to make the light catch on her halo-shaped headpiece—to stare the woman dead in the eyes.

"Heroes never die," she states flatly. "You can take away their titles and their honors and rewrite history so that they are the villain—but you can never undo what they did." She sits a little taller, a little prouder, chin high, shoulders back.

"We all die. Every one of us. But somewhere, there is some young girl who has no interest in your politics, or your agenda. All she knows is that once—Overwatch protected her. And that is all she cares about." Her eyes sweep the council. They all stare back at her wordlessly.

"In this way, ladies and gentlemen, heroes never die. They will live on. The world will forget your disloyalty and dishonesty. You will all die like ever other politician—unloved and unworthy of those you served." The woman from the UK covers her mouth with her hand. The Brazilian man is staring at her in open shock. Angela is not done.

"Gabriel Reyes will always be a hero. John Morrison, Jesse McCree, Torbjörn Lindholm, Genji Shimada—you cannot take that away from them." She spreads her hands in a gesture of helplessness. Of insincere apology. "Even me."

They all stare back at her, and their expressions remind Angela of the faces she'd see when she'd descend upon battles—open awe, slight fear, sheer astonishment. Not quite respect, never admiration. Feared equally by her enemies and those she sought to protect, echoing the same words biblical angels always greeted mortals with—that imperative, emphatic _do not be afraid._

She doesn't have the weight of her wings, but she carries a weight across her shoulders nonetheless. She lacks a shining, sparking headpiece, but her ID badge will glint if it catches the light just right. She has no armor to speak of, but her battered lab coat has seen her through hundreds of operations, and it still bears the old Overwatch logo on the shoulder.

She is not Mercy—Mercy is mythic. A legend that will live on with Reyes and Morrison and Amari.

She is Dr. Angela Ziegler. And that is going to have to be enough.

Her resolve flash-freezes at this discovery—diamond-hard and lined with steel.

_Heroes never die._

They may change. Transform. Grow. They may get retold so many times they become unrecognizable, but they never, ever die.

And so neither will she. Not when there is so much left to do.

Not when there is a legacy—a family—that so desperately needs protection.

"So then," she faces them all, expression clear, eyes bright, jaw set. "What else may I assist with?"

**Author's Note:**

> I already regret naming this Renaissance because that’s one of the like, six words I can never ever spell right.
> 
> BUT HEY I’m back! I didn’t write anything for like, a week! And it was actually pretty good! Because now I’ve got a bunch of ideas and feel really good about stuff! Breaks are important, kids!
> 
> Huge thank you to [@gaynervousdog](http://gaynervousdog.tumblr.com/)for looking over this piece and giving me a lot of solid feedback and for just being a wonderful person in general.
> 
> This is like, one of the first Overwatch fic ideas I ever had (I sketched out the idea for it after I wrote fucking [Purgatory](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6950842) which was I think my second Overwatch piece??)
> 
> Anyway here it is and I’m pretty proud of it so there you go. I hope you guys all had an okay Thanksgiving/Turkey Day/We Don’t Celebrate Because The Pilgrims Were Assholes/I Spent All Of November 24th Avoiding My Family. My Thanksgiving was a lot of playing Pokemon Sun, eating chips and salsa, and listening to my mom yell about football.
> 
> Whatever the case may be, I love you guys all a whole lot, am and very thankful for all of you, and the feedback you give me.
> 
> _Like this piece? Here’s my billboard!_
> 
> **[MORE OVERWATCH WRITING](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MidwesternDuchess/works?fandom_id=3406514) **
> 
> **[MAIN/PERSONAL BLOG](http://midwestern-duchess.tumblr.com/) **
> 
> **[WRITING DUMP](http://dominodebt.tumblr.com/) **
> 
> **[TWITTER](https://twitter.com/MidwestDuchess) **
> 
> Have a good one, kids! Do good things, make good choice, be good people!
> 
> ~~I’m going back to Alola so if you never hear from me again assume I died hunting for a shiny eevee~~


End file.
